Glyndebourne’s La traviata on tour: or What the Maid Saw

Verdi never met Marie Duplessis, for she died five months before the composer’s first visit to Paris, but he was deeply touched by her fate, to be related through Alexandre Dumas fils’ classic novel La dame aux camélias. Verdi and his mistress, Giuseppina Strepponi, rubbed shoulders with the same circles as Marie and her clientele; indeed, they were subject of the same sort of Parisian gossip. La traviata, based on Marie’s story, was his only opera with a contemporary setting, so a modern update such as Tom Cairns’ for Glyndebourne seems fitting.